# Hearth and Home/Pipesandcigars.com Egg Nog



## Jeff10236 (Nov 21, 2010)

Hmm, Egg Nog aromatic pipe tobacco. I was making an order with pipesandcigars.com anyway and decided I had to give this a try. I'll admit I was a bit nervous, Egg Nog? I figured it is either going to be terrific or terrible, but certainly not something in between. Well...

Lets start with the description and see how it fares:


> The first true aromatic in the Hearth and Home series. A light and dark mixture with rum, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg flavorings. Although the aroma is complex, pleasant and mildly sweet, the spice flavorings come through more prominently in the smoking. A bite-free blend that will please anyone in the room.


The tobaccos are Cavendish and Black Cavendish.

I open the bag and I'm greeted by a strangely mild aroma (rum, cinnamon and nutmeg, I expected it to be strong). It is pleasant, and somewhat familiar, but mild and hard to place.

Upon lighting it I am surprised...I was wrong, I don't love or hate it. There are some very pleasant flavors coming out of it, but some unpleasant ones as well.  Like many aros (especially Cavendish based ones) you don't really get much tobacco taste. The nutmeg is the predominant flavor with faint hints of the cinnamon and vanilla flavorings (in that order) throughout the smoke and which rise to the front and then recede again at times. This is not a very sweet aro, which may be hard for many aro fans to get used to, it is more spicy (as in baking spice spicy). I also get hints now and then of a mildly musty flavor similar to the smell you get out of an old sleeping bag or tent that was stored in an overly humid basement (not overwhelming, but there). The aftertaste is very nice, for a while after smoking I have a nice cinnamon on my tongue. Overall, the flavor is mostly pleasant, but the jury is still out.

The smoking experience is very good. Despite being an aro, and despite lighting it right out of the bag within hours of its arrival, it is not overly wet at all. It lit easily, and stayed lit pretty easily. Because of the spice, it has a slightly "sharp" mouthfeel and I expected some bite, but it is surprisingly tongue bite free. There is evidence of the nearly black, heavy ash produced by many aros, but most of the ash is the nice thin light gray ash typically produced by a decent English, VA or VAPer.

It produces nice volumes of nice, thick, creamy blue/gray smoke. It is an aro, so it smells terrific. It smells primarily of nutmeg and cinnamon with a hint of cream (I assume from the vanilla). Strangely, it does occasionally switch to a sandlewood incense scent, but it isn't unpleasant (when I was younger and sometimes burned incense, that was my scent).

I'm glad I bought 2oz. It will take a few smokes to know for sure if I like it (I'm really not 100% sure, but I think I do) so 1oz may not have been enough of a sample, but if I don't like it 2oz isn't too much so I won't have a lot of tobacco I don't like sitting around.


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## Jeff10236 (Nov 21, 2010)

I've had quite a few more bowls of this and can definitively say I like it. I can easily see the egg nog in the name. The nutmeg and cinnamon with a little creamy vanilla definitely is reminiscent of egg nog. 

The room note, especially an hour or two later, is very much classic aromatic. It smells good for a while, and when fresh smells better than non-aro room notes. However, something I noticed years ago, when aros get stale, the smell stinks. Maybe there is something with the heavy scents, but assuming an occasional indoors or in car smoke where you give time for it to dissipate, I notice that aros linger. They linger longer than cigars, and much longer than English, Virginia and VaPer pipe blends. Once the smell goes stale, it stinks. This is no exception.

Overall, it tastes pretty good, when fresh it smells quite good. I have managed to smoke it a little too fast and bring on tongue bite, but it is fairly resistant. I now only rarely get the musty smell I sometimes got in my first few bowls. It is easy to keep lit (I may average one relight per bowl with this, which is pretty good for an aro). It is a nice change from non-aros and also from sweeter traditional aros with the spicy flavor more than a sweet one. I'll be keeping this stuff around.


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## Zeabed (Apr 23, 2009)

I infused a batch of Egg Nog with some Flor de Cana Nicaraguan rum and I recommend it. But infuse it, don't sprinkle it directly on the baccy. Place a small jar of the rum in the center of a container, with the Egg Nog spread out all around it. Close the container and let it sit undisturbed for a couple of days. Then jar the baccy for another few days. Worth the short wait.


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## JuanOrez (Apr 15, 2011)

Zeabed said:


> I infused a batch of Egg Nog with some Flor de Cana Nicaraguan rum and I recommend it. But infuse it, don't sprinkle it directly on the baccy. Place a small jar of the rum in the center of a container, with the Egg Nog spread out all around it. Close the container and let it sit undisturbed for a couple of days. Then jar the baccy for another few days. Worth the short wait.


Eggnog is one of the few blends from Russ that does not agree with me. I love just about everything else but this one never really "did it for me". However, I may have to revisit and try this recommendation.


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